


Lily's Scarf

by SteelDollS



Category: Vocaloid
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Body Dysphoria, Body Image, Bullying, Crying, Disassociation, Distress, Emotional Hurt, First Kiss, Kissing, Lies, Neck Kissing, Other, POV Third Person, Panic Attacks, Scarves, Self Confidence Issues, Self Image, Self-Denial, Shame, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans, Triggers, moles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 12:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12653589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteelDollS/pseuds/SteelDollS
Summary: Lily has a secret that makes her different. If she could ignore it, she would be "happy." But it's not really just that simple. It's easy for some people to say "well, I don't get it," when someone hurts, but they don't want to validate those hurts. As if validating or not makes those hurts less or more real to the one who has them....But maybe it'd help, if they tried to imagine on a much smaller scale, to start.A fic request from a friend. I hope you like it.





	Lily's Scarf

**Author's Note:**

> _It's been so freaking long since I wrote anything, so I hope it turned out okay. (What's it called, this kind of fic, anyways? Where it can try to make you think of more than one thing and is almost narrative.) I can't think of tags._
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>  _Probably nobody but you will even read this considering it's not R18, but I hope you like it anyways._ ;;; ;w;

Maybe she should have expected people to understand, but she didn't, because they refused to, and she didn't deserve what people refused to give.

Lily stared into the mirror. Usually, she avoided looking directly into the glass. She tried to numb her brain when the anxiety of looking directly at herself was necessary. She had developed a particular ability to grey out her vision in a way- a very particular way. A way that allowed her to brush her hair, apply her makeup, and brush the wrinkles out of her clean, fresh clothes, without REALLY looking.

Oh, she knew that it was there. She couldn't escape from it: the thing that made her different. The thing that made her walk away from the kitchen quickly after looking at the sharp steak knives a moment too long. The thing that forced her to stay home from school some days, or remain in the girls' bathroom, locked in a stall, fighting the feelings of revulsion and panic, and knowing that she was trapped, and no one would help her, for hours. 

Knowing that she'd be scolded, punished, when the teachers or her parents found out she had done so. Having to plan lies that would sound acceptable to the people that loved her when she did the right thing- maybe even loved her when she did the wrong thing... but would never accept the real reason Lily was having such a problem with her life. Maybe because they didn't understand, because they couldn't relate. Maybe because they didn't care enough to try. Maybe because they didn't want to. Maybe because Lily was the wrong one, wrong, wrong, and unable to fix being wrong.

It didn't matter, because at the end of the day, eyes sliding past the glass on the wall as she took her makeup off, changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth, and tried to disassociate herself from her body and become the person that would be happy if she were them, Lily could see it, feel it, and know it was there.

She was born with it: her parents had told her so. Other girls had the same as she did- the same, and worse. In fact, lots of people had much worse problems! She would lie in bed and be angry at herself to distract herself from the other feelings that bubbled up to the surface when the distractions of the day all went away for the night. She didn't want to think about other feelings. If she were angry at herself, enough that the shame would really stick, deep down Lily felt that she could keep a handle on the issue that she couldn't fix by herself. It was a small issue, really. Compared to other people? She had a good life. 

After this, Lily would sometimes resolve to try harder at her life. After scolding herself for what other people would scold her for, like a ritual, she looked for a place of comfort in the routine. In reality, it wasn't as simple as "try harder" because the truth was, Lily was the one at fault for being the way she was.

Lily looked up at the ceiling and thought about other things. Thought about being a younger child. 

It was true that Lily had been born this way. Her parents had celebrated when she was born. Her childhood memories were full of good things, and bad things. Good things and bad things other people had done, good things and bad things she had done herself. It had always been there: the thing. She dreaded to give a name to it, because just the word made her stomach churn and gave her the need to throw up, and she didn't like that feeling.

She had developed a lot of rituals, Lily had. Things she could do, that she had control over. Things she could say, ways she could speak and stand and move, that would veil her secret. When she did a good job of it, the people around her seemed to radiate approval. "Good job: although you're not perfect, you do well to make up for it; we can hardly notice your unacceptable, disgusting, ever-present... body." That's what Lily heard silently in her head when she did a good job. It felt like relief when she heard it, and made her try that much harder to cover up the Wrongness on her body.

But there were unkind things, too. The boys who wouldn't play with her, because of her... issue. The girls whose eyes opened large when they caught sight of the thing she tried to hard to hide, then smiled little smiles and told her that they "wouldn't stop being her friend" because of finding out her secret. People on the street she knew from church, who whispered when they thought she couldn't hear- or maybe they knew she could- things like how it was a shame that she wouldn't get married to just anyone- it'd have to be just the right person; someone who didn't mind her looks. That it might be harder for her to find a job in the field she wanted to work in when she grew up.

That they hoped that she wasn't dressed like that, because the problem had gotten bigger. Had grown with puberty.

It was a mole. On her neck. Enormous.

It shadowed her everywhere. When she went to school, it terrified her when the wind blew her hair, threatening to expose her neck to anyone and everyone. When she turned her head in class, she dreaded the boy she liked to notice it, and so she sat stock-still, and didn't move at all until the lessons were over. It made her afraid. 

Her parents told her that no one really cared; only she did. But, wasn't that enough? Anyways, Lily knew better. People treated her differently, made fun of her, pulled her hair and yelled names at her when she was little. Because she was different- no, because she was ugly. She was taunted that witches had moles. Once, in second grade, a pair of boys had held her down while she screamed for them to stop, and drew more moles all over her neck and her face, and nose, until she tore away. That day she had run until her lungs tasted like blood and she thought she might die from suffocation because of the blood and mucous sobbing down her face from her hysteria keeping her from getting air into her.

It probably wouldn't have happened if she hadn't made a big deal of it, her parents had tried to reassure her, smiling at each other through her childish grief and terror, as though Lily didn't know what feeling bad really meant, being only a child yet. If Lily hadn't always hated having that ugly, discolored, thick, raised, ugly mole on her body. If it hadn't slowly become the reason why she was separated from other people who she would be just like- except for that one tiny difference.

Or big difference. It was huge, after all. And ugly. And Lily knew that begging her parents for help to get it removed would just be met with a negative response. "It's cosmetic," her mother frowned at her. "You should be the person God made you."

Lily was the person God had made her. She couldn't not be. But that mole on her neck wasn't her, was it? "The operation is too expensive. Anyways, it's probably leave you with a huge, ugly scar, for the rest of your life. And it'd hurt! It's hurt a lot while it heals, Lily. Why don't you just be you? You're beautiful and my daughter, so don't worry so much about your looks. If you want plastic surgery when you're older... well..."

The fear worked, and was helped by the disgusted tone that accompanied the words "plastic surgery", but Lily thought desperately to herself, "It's not about my looks. Not just... cosmetic. I can FEEL it there. I can see it. But I can never get away. It always felt like it doesn't belong there. Felt... Wrong. Gross. And it's so noticeable. Everything now I do seems to be focused on it. I hate it, I hate me! If only it would go away, then I could be free in my body! Maybe I'd be teased about having it removed. Maybe it would leave a big scar. I don't care. I don't care! It's there no matter where I go or when I wake up or whether I do well on a test, or diet or don't diet, and I can't escape it, and I can't escape it ever. Why do I have to be like this? Please, someone make it go away! Please, God! Why do I have to be this?!"

But Lily couldn't say that aloud, couldn't cry on her mother's shoulder, couldn't pray and pray and pray... because that would be whining, and petty. And her prayers never got answered. That mole was really there because in truth, she was ugly inside. If she was beautiful inside, like she was supposed to be, then that mole wouldn't REALLY matter. That's what her parents told her. She believed them. She had no life experience to tell her not to. She had to trust her parents. She had to trust God. Somehow, she deserved hurting all the time without the control over her own body to fix what felt so sickening and wrong. But maybe that was wrong of her to think. More wrong. She was wrong no matter what, and couldn't fix, couldn't win, couldn't become better.

"If I'm good, it will go away," Lily thought when she was in the middle of a dream. In her dreams, she didn't have a mole on her neck. She was just herself. She played with the girls, and they didn't tell her they'd still be her friend 'despite' the mole. She smiled at the boy she liked in class, and he smiled back, and she didn't worry about his eyes sliding down her neck to notice it. The thing. But when she woke up, it was there, and she had to breathe, just breathe, and cry quietly, because yet again today, she would have to put her hair just so, walk just so, and not turn her head in class again. It hurt, but no one understood, because it was cosmetic and vain, and it was how she was born, and she could not stop it.

But that day, something different did happen. Walking perfectly, speaking perfectly, smiling appropriately, making the lies that worked, and not turning her head so that her hair would remain acceptable to others and hide her wrongness, something happened. The boy- the one! Walked up to her at lunch and smiled at her. She was scared to smile back, but she did so somehow. 

"Let's go for a date together, Lily," the boy said. "You're pretty."

"I... can't," Lily said numbly. He would know. The boy she liked. He would find out and scream at her, and call her a liar because she didn't proclaim her Wrongness in front of him before daring to like him, and then he would hate her forever. Maybe he would hate her. She liked him, had for weeks, but... She couldn't. 

But what if he didn't see her mole? Maybe she COULD have some love from the boy she liked, if only he didn't... find out. But wouldn't that be wrong? She'd be lying. Lying and saying she wasn't disgusting and Wrong and born with a mole. "I'm sorry... I..."

The boy reached out his hand and Lily flinched, terrified. Not of the boy- but of the thing that made her feel sick. He paused, then smiled a little sadly, but he leaned forward and kissed her. 

Lily wanted to cry. Or run away. Or kiss back. But before she could figure out what the right thing to do was, for a person with a mole on their neck, the boy had leaned forward even more and touched her arm and his lips moved down to her neck... and sucked on her mole.

Lily screamed. She hit the boy with all the strength in her fists and sobbed, howling, beating him away from her. His disgusting mouth. His beautiful mouth. She hit and scratched at him and hyperventilated and threw up all over the floor. But it was in her mind, because in reality, she froze, stock-still, and just tried not to whimper and cry as the boy slowly moved back from her and smiled shyly. His lips were wet. Her neck was exposed.

"It's okay, I like girls with moles on their necks," he said, still smiling shyly. "Let's date. Okay? I'll see you tomorrow. I like you, Lily."

'No,' Lily thought to herself. 'No. You don't like me. You like the thing that makes me hurt. The thing that's not me. The thing that makes me want to throw up when you touch me there. The thing that makes me not be able to me. You don't like me. You like the thing that I hate, that makes me want to die.'

Lily felt sick. She went to the girls' bathroom and waited for the feelings to go away.

"Don't think, don't feel, don't remember," Lily chanted, but the sound of her voice jangled her. It was the voice of someone who was forced to be what they weren't. She tried to remember how she had liked the boy who had kissed her neck. She tried to remember it, but she felt so sick, so sick, and she couldn't change, because there was no help to change what was wrong. "I want to kill myself."

It sounded good. It would be an end. It would be an end! But it wouldn't work. She knew. She'd tried before. All that happened was pain, and pain, and doctor visits, and people screaming at her, shaming her, looking at her in THAT way. She didn't want that. But god, she wanted it to end.

"Everyone expects girls to date someone. I should date him," Lily whispered, feeling dirty. Her whole body felt covered in the filth of those words. But, if she could pretend hard enough- fake it until she made it....

"If I marry him, no one will ever know. No one will know that my body is wrong, unless I tell them. I can be exactly perfect, and become happy, like people who don't have things wrong with their bodies. I won't find people like me, or have real relationships, but it won't matter, if I'm someone else than me, right?" Lily knew there was a flaw in her logic, but she couldn't muster up the emotional or mental strength to find the flaw. A strange sense like euphoria fell like cotton across her nerves, although her arms and legs felt shaky, and her face felt numb, and her stomach still felt like throwing up everything her bile duct had in its system.

"If I earn it, maybe my body will change. Maybe I will change. All those other people can't be wrong about me, right? I'm the abnormal one. They're the right ones. I can fix this, by doing the right thing. I'll date him, and we'll get married. I'll just ignore everything else and do that, and it'll be alright one day. I can't remove it. I'm trapped forever until I die. No one will help me. I have to do the only thing that will make me happy. If I accept my fate, I'll be happy. Right?"

When Lily got home, she found that her uncle had sent her a birthday present.

'Happy Birthday,' The card said, 'To my beautiful niece. These are stylish these days! Love you.'

Inside was a beautiful, long, thick, opaque fashion scarf.

Lily clutched it in her white-knuckled grip like a lifeline. Her odd, wide-eyed smile was so big and unusual that her parents, upon seeing it, smiled back in approval, and thought to themselves: 'Maybe we'll buy her another scarf for Christmas. It's never too early for Christmas shopping, after all. And she'll look nice in it. We can be proud of her looking beautiful when she wears this kind of gift."

Lily wrapped the scarf around her neck carefully, trying not to touch her mole. When it was in place she let her eyes look at the mirror. Lily took a breath in. Let it out. Breathed in. Let it out. The mole wasn't in her vision while the scarf was there. She touched the glass and smiled through her tears.

"I will never take it off," Lily whispered to herself. "Look. I can look at me and fake it. If I wear this and pretend, I'll be okay."

 _But what if that mole wasn't simply a mole?_  
  
...What if it was a different body part?  
What if it wasn't something additional, but something missing?  
What if that missing thing was something you didn't just feel ON your skin... but under it, and through your veins, and in your face, in the shape of your bones, in the height of your stature, in the gait of your step? What if you knew in your bones that your body felt wrong, that the clothes you were wearing felt like they fit wrong, that every time you expressed your interests, someone guided you to dislike them? What if, every time you touched yourself in private, you felt sick because your body was split open where it shouldn't be, or sewn up and jiggling when it shouldn't be, and the sensation of it made you feel revolted- not because the body parts are wrong, but because they're wrong for your body? And what if you can't escape?

What if, when you meet someone you love, they can never love you back, because you're too busy trying to be who you're not to let them genuinely be with you? What if, when you meet the person you love, knowing they can never love you back, they are only happy when you push the disgusting thing that makes you cry and want to be dead, into them? What if the opposite of who you are, and what feels right, is the only thing that's rewarded and loved by the ones around you?

What if, every time you do something good, you get insulted and identified as the wrong sex, in a sick mockery of a "thanks"?

Would you stop helping?  
Would you stop trying to be what those around you want?  
What if, every time something 'good' to other people happens, it makes only you hurt?  
If it's only "you" who is hurting; does that mean that suffering doesn't really matter? Is there such a thing as "it's only me who feels like this" being a valid dismissal of hurting?

If one of Lily's friends also was born with a mole, you'd think they would understand how she feels. But if they're comfortable with their mole, and Lily isn't comfortable with hers, and it distresses her to the point where she can't even live her life with genuine happiness and honest inner value- if Lily's identity is forced into a skewed version of everybody demanding she live with her mole and become her mole- then no, they probably can't understand. Why is it that the mole is allowed to become more important than Lily herself? Who decides that? Why can't she fix it? Why?

But if Lily's mole was removed, even if her friend who also has a mole didn't understand why "just a mole" hurt Lily so much, I think that at least her friend would understand everything else about Lily: about being a woman, and wanting to be loved, and about being just like her friend in most other, more important ways- in all ways, except for the mole. And at that point, neither Lily or her friend would need to Tolerate it. They'd just be themselves. And wouldn't that be a beginning?

If you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, and don't even see yourself... if you're fat and told you shouldn't exercise; if you're short and told you'll never marry a beautiful girl because shortness makes you worthless; if you have a mole and are told you can never, ever remove it; but you hate those things and obsess about them because of that helplessness, then which thing are you being told is more important: yourself? Or "petty" matters?

No one else really needs to "understand" why a thing hurts, if that thing can be fixed. No one is supposed to need to tolerate hurt when it should be corrected. When a person knows something needs to be fixed? It just needs to be fixed. 

Until then, it'll continue to hurt. And that's 'normal.' 

Maybe it'll continue to remain that no one will help you. You can't change it. That's just how it is. 

But like Lily's mole, it seems like it shouldn't be made to remain unfixed.


End file.
